Merger with Breast Cancer Care

Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now have united to create one breast cancer charity.

We're excited to announce Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now have united to create one charity for everyone affected by breast cancer. From April 2019, we became the UK’s first comprehensive breast cancer charity.

From research to care, our new charity has people affected by breast cancer at its heart – providing support for today and hope for the future. United, we have the ability to carry out even more world-class research, provide even more life-changing support and campaign even more effectively for better services and care.

By coming together we are stronger and speak with one clear voice for everyone affected by breast cancer — now and in the future. With our combined passion, energy, expertise, funds and networks, we’ll make greater progress in more effective ways.

Together, we are united in the aim that, by 2050 everyone who develops breast cancer will live, and everyone receives the support they need to live well now.

Both Boards of Trustees were delighted to appoint Delyth Morgan, currently Chief Executive at Breast Cancer Now, as CEO Designate for the new charity, after Samia al Qadhi decided to step down as Chief Executive at Breast Cancer Care, following 25 years of dedicated service and progress for people affected by breast cancer.

Samia remained CEO of Breast Cancer Care until 31 March 2019 to help Delyth ensure the merger was a huge success.

Delyth Morgan had this message for supporters:

This merger is a once in a lifetime chance to unite two leading charities to make greater and faster progress for everyone affected by breast cancer. With incidence rising, inequalities in care remaining, and over eleven thousand families torn apart by metastatic breast cancer every year in the UK, we need to do much, much more – and we need to do it now.

It will be a great honour to lead the new charity; a role which is both professionally, and personally, very important to me. As the UK’s first comprehensive breast cancer charity, we will be driven forward by collaboration, ambition and – most importantly – the passion of our supporters and partners, who will remain at the heart of the new organisation.

By joining forces, we’ll do everything we can to make the research breakthroughs that will give women more time to live and to ensure everyone affected by the disease has the support and care they need. We look forward, with great hope, to taking this exciting step together.

Samia al Qadhi, Chief Executive of Breast Cancer Care, said:

Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now have both made incredible advances and we firmly believe now is the time to unite as one charity for everyone affected by breast cancer and rise to the huge challenge of the disease together.

I am incredibly proud of all we have achieved for people affected by this life-changing disease over Breast Cancer Care’s 45 years. Uniting will now make it possible to reach a future sooner where everyone affected by breast cancer lives and receives the support they need to live well.

Delyth brings incredible passion and expertise and will be a wonderful leader of the new charity to, importantly, speak with one clear voice for people affected by breast cancer, both now and in future.

We hope the below will answer any questions you may have - what this will mean for people affected by breast cancer, our supporters and breast cancer research, and what our aims and ambitions for the new charity are.

Get in touch

If you have any questions or concerns that you would like to discuss with our Supporter Engagement team, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us by calling 0333 20 70 300 or emailing supporterengagement@breastcancernow.org

Both Boards of Trustees believed that by uniting around our shared ambition – that, by 2050, everyone who develops breast cancer will live and receive the support they need to live well now – we can achieve more together than we can apart.

Four years ago, there was the opportunity to merge Breakthrough Breast Cancer and Breast Cancer Campaign – two similar research and campaigning organisations – to form Breast Cancer Now, the UK’s largest breast cancer research charity. In 2019 we had the opportunity to unite two complementary charities – Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now – and create one charity in the UK for all those affected by breast cancer. This opportunity did not exist four years ago.

It has created one, stronger charity in the UK for all those affected by breast cancer united around one ambition – that by 2050 everyone who develops breast cancer will live and receive the support they need to live well now. It brings together our combined heritage, passion, energy, expertise, funds and networks to drive greater progress through research, campaigning and support in the prevention, detection, treatment and care (physical and emotional) of every breast cancer patient, now and in the future.

No, it is a merger of two charities, uniting around our shared ambition – that by 2050 everyone who develops breast cancer will live and receive the support they need to live well now – we can achieve more together than we can apart. Our merger created the UK’s first comprehensive breast cancer charity, bringing together our combined heritage, passion, energy, expertise, funds and networks to create a stronger force for every breast cancer patient, now and in the future.

No. Both charities were financially stable but we know we can achieve more together. By bringing together our passion, energy, expertise, funds and networks, we’ll make greater progress in more effective ways for every breast cancer patient, now and in the future.

The merger was ultimately about growing our impact, now and in the future. However, we believe there will be financial benefits – there will be running costs across both charity operations, such as two sets of London offices, two finance systems, websites, various software licences and reporting tools, which will, over time, become one and create efficiencies which can be invested into other priorities. Both charities also already had exciting plans for investment going forward and merger allows us to bring these together, to maximise the opportunities for income growth and impact, now and in the future.

Delyth Morgan (CEO at Breast Cancer Now) was been appointed CEO Designate. Samia al Qadhi (CEO at Breast Cancer Care) remained CEO of Breast Cancer Care until 31 March 2019 and worked with Delyth to ensure the merger was a huge success.

The new Board of Trustees consists of six trustees from each legacy charity board, which will make up the 12 trustees on the Board Designate. As was the case with Breast Cancer Care’s Board, at least one-third of the Board will have a personal experience of breast cancer.

Whilst the new charity legally merged on 1 April 2019, Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now continue to exist and operate as separate brands, under separate names, whilst the charities operations are merged and the merged charity’s brand is developed.

We expect this to take up to a year from November 2018 at most. Where possible, the charities will run a dual brand approach in this time. A brand agency will take us through a brand integration process, which will draw on the key strengths of the existing brands, whilst creating a strong brand for the future.

If you have any questions or concerns that you would like to discuss with our Supporter Engagement team, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us by calling 0333 20 70 300 or emailing supporterengagement@breastcancernow.org.

As has always been the case, money raised for a project or a restricted fund will only be used for that purpose. Both charities remain committed to ensuring that our supporter’s generous donations are spent to best support our charitable work, to help those affected by breast cancer. As one new charity, we continue to give our full focus to spending supporters’ money as efficiently as possible, to generate the best possible outcomes for people affected by breast cancer.

Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now will continue to operate as independent charities, so you’ll continue to be supported by your regular contact for the foreseeable future. If there are any changes to this, we’ll let you know.

Your regular gift will continue to be taken in the usual way/at the usual time. The merger means that, effectively, your support will go even further to improve the lives of those affected by breast cancer. The need for your support remains as great as ever, so thank you for your generosity.

The two charities have already recruited their marathon teams for 2019 and, as a result, we will have two teams in next year’s marathon. However, we may look to have joint cheering points – which means we’ll be making even more noise to cheer you on!

In the short-term, supporter information will remain safely held on our respective databases.

As ever, we’ll continue to ensure that all supporter data is treated with the utmost care and in line with our responsibilities under GDPR. We know that our supporters trust us with their personal information and we make sure that anyone who shares this with us can do so in the knowledge that we keep their information safe and respect their contact preferences.

Respecting and taking care of our supporters’ information is an absolute priority for both organisations, and this continues in the new charity. Following the merger, we continue to ensure that we work to the highest standards and meet the expectations of our supporters as well as relevant guidance and legislation.

The merger was about growth in impact in the longer-term, so we're aiming to grow investment in our charitable work in the future. As one new charity, we will continue to give our full focus to spending supporters’ money as efficiently as possible, to generate the best possible outcomes for people affected by breast cancer.

Yes. Secondary breast cancer remains a strategic priority for both charities, and this will continue into the new charity. We hope that by coming together to create one clear voice we will be able to drive greater, much-needed progress in this area.

Our aim is that, by 2050, everyone who develops breast cancer will live and receive the support they need to live well now, which means that so much of what we do now and in the future is about stopping women dying of secondary breast cancer. Whether that’s finding ways to support patients’ needs more effectively, and, through research and campaigning, preventing the disease spreading and developing new treatments that patients can access to give them more time to live and live well.

The Board of Trustees of the new charity decides how much money should be allocated to research in the same way as it is currently – they are advised by a Science Strategy Committee which includes some of our trustees, representatives from some of our grant funding committees, other independent researchers, and at least one member with experience of breast cancer.

The Science Strategy Committee continues to advise the Board of Trustees on the balance of our expenditure on different types of research, both in terms of the research areas and in the funding mechanisms that we use. In the short term, this balance will continue to be reviewed regularly but is unlikely to change. In the longer term, the pattern of our grant funding will be influenced by the strategy of the new charity, when that strategy has been agreed.

Research continues to be at the heart of the new charity, and the charity is likely to continue to support all aspects of breast cancer research, as Breast Cancer Now did previously.

As of 1 April 2018, we were funding 85 active research projects. The total value of all those projects is about £25 million. That funding directly supports 380 researchers, but there are many other people working alongside those scientists who benefit from the resources and infrastructure that Breast Cancer Now provides. We fund research in 31 institutions in the UK and Ireland, and there are a small number of grants to institutions in other European countries.

Our research is focused on four key areas – risk and prevention, early detection and diagnosis, treatment and secondary breast cancer. We believe this approach to research will allow us to achieve our ambition and stop breast cancer taking lives.

All of our donations come from the generous public and our partners, and so our corporate partnerships remain vital to our success as a new charity. With their support, we are able to continue our work for people affected by breast cancer.

We work closely with our corporate partners to encourage them to continue their support for Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now, explaining that we’re stronger together and how much more we’ll be able to achieve as a united entity.

We are delighted that our long-standing partnership with Asda continues post-merger. This partnership has already shown the importance of collaboration and will continue to raise money to further breast cancer research and services.

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£30 could fund one hour of research working to try and find new ways to prevent, detect, treat and eventually save lives from breast cancer.

Breast Cancer Now is a working name of Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now, a company limited by guarantee registered in England (9347608) and a charity registered in England and Wales (1160558), Scotland (SC045584) and a business name of the registered charity in the Isle of Man (1200). Registered Office: Fifth Floor, Ibex House, 42-47 Minories, London EC3N 1DY.